Max Lucado Daily: The Same Hands
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 21:4
Someday God will wipe away your tears. The same hands that stretched the heavens will touch your cheeks. The same hands that formed the mountains will caress your face. The same hands that curled in agony as the Roman spike cut through will someday cup your face and brush away your tears.
Luke 18
The Parable of the Persistent Widow
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The Little Children and Jesus
15 People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
The Rich and the Kingdom of God
18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’[a]”
21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: John 5:35-47
35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study[a] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
41 “I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God[b]?
45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
Beyond The Status Quo
September 22, 2011 — by David C. McCasland
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. —John 5:40
Dr. Jack Mezirow, professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, believes that an essential element in adult learning is to challenge our own ingrained perceptions and examine our insights critically. Dr. Mezirow says that adults learn best when faced with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma”—something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired” (Barbara Strauch, The New York Times). This is the opposite of saying, “My mind is made up—don’t confuse me with the facts.”
When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, He challenged the deeply held beliefs of many religious leaders, and they sought to silence Him (John 5:16-18). Jesus said to them: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (vv.39-40).
Oswald Chambers observed, “God has a way of bringing in facts which upset a man’s doctrines if these stand in the way of God getting at his soul.”
Unsettling experiences that cause us to question our assumptions about the Lord can also lead us to a deeper understanding and trust in Him—if we’re willing to think it through and come to Him.
My mind cries its questions,
My longing heart, joining.
O Father, please hear me!
O Spirit, keep teaching! —Verway
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 22nd, 2011
The Missionary’s Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am . . . . I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master . . .—John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less— “. . . for One is your Teacher, the Christ . . .” (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord . . .”— but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “. . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience. . .” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it—a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
High Water and High Walls - #6444
Thursday, September 22, 2011
It all depended on the levees. So many Americans have been watching record high flood waters rising all around them this past spring, and desperately hoping that the wall between them and all that water was high enough to hold it back.
Now, it would be crazy for some town to suddenly say, "Oh no! Man the water's rising! We'd better build a wall here fast!" No, no. See, it's too late when the waters are surging. You've got to build your walls high before the flood comes around a town, around your family, around your marriage.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "High Water and High Walls."
Now, we are living in a time when we have all seen marriages getting washed away. Couples who promised "til death do us part," who parted long before that. And let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of high water threatening every one of our marriages: huge financial pressures, medical crises, schedules so busy that they turn lovers into strangers, sexual images everywhere, so many opportunities to look for love in all the wrong places, so many detours, and so many landmines. There's so many ways for disillusionment to set in, and disappointment and despair to come in and steal away what was once a very committed love.
But thank God it doesn't have to be that way. Our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 4:26 gives us a great example of one of the walls we need to build high around our marriage. It says, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." See, harbored anger is a "bitter root" in the words of the Bible that "grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (Hebrews 12:15). And if you let that resentment smolder, you let the sun go down on it, then it gets fueled by wounds that are not dealt with quickly, and that will one day be the fire that incinerates a marriage.
Flood-proof love needs another high wall that says, "I will set before my eyes no vile thing." That's Psalm 101:3. See, there's plenty of vile to look at these days. I don't have to tell you that: websites, movies, TV shows, lots of skin. We just can't afford to feed the monster of desire that has devoured so many. And then there's that wall that says, "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." It's in James 1:19.
Some of the floods that ravage a marriage don't come from outside. They come from feelings and needs that got stuffed inside because the one who loves that person wasn't listening. We can't be close for long if we don't take time, regular time, to know each other's hurts--to know each other's hearts.
And we've found at our house that there's no more important wall to build than the one that reads, "Seek first the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33). Two people living for themselves, or even for each other, honestly it just isn't enough to hold back the flood. It takes two people living together for the God who loves them. Praying together often, drawing closer to each other as they draw close to Him. He's a God whose love runs strong when our love runs low. He pours out His inexhaustible, unconditional love, so we then have it to give to the one we've pledged our life to.
There really can be a love that lasts a lifetime. That gets stronger with time. That defies the flood, if you build your walls high.
No comments:
Post a Comment